An enterprise that desires its employees to communicate effectively with one another must provide some type of telecommunications infrastructure. For example, the enterprise can use call-handling equipment such as private branch exchanges to enable employees to communicate conveniently with one another, as well as with people external to the enterprise. A private branch exchange, in particular, is capable of routing incoming calls from a telecommunications network, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network, via one or more transmission lines to any of the on-premises telephones that exist within the enterprise. Similarly, the private branch exchange is also capable of handling outgoing calls from any of the on-premises telephones to the telecommunications network.
Additionally, the private branch exchange is capable of providing telecommunications features that enable the forwarding of calls, the transferring of calls, conferencing, and so forth. Typically, each user of an on-premises telephone can create a customized profile that is stored at the private branch exchange and indicates to the exchange how to present information to and respond to signals from a telephone. In short, a private branch exchange—or other types of call-handling equipment, for that matter—provides a powerful business tool with which employees are able to communicate with one another and accomplish work in the process.
With telephones present throughout the enterprise, it should be unsurprising that the workplace can be extremely noisy and, as such, can be unfavorable to getting work done. The superfluous sounds from conversation-related noise sources can be heard throughout the workday, which sources include continually-occurring conference calls, enthusiastic users of speakerphones, and the ever-present din of background chatter, even from the relatively quiet users of handsets. Many office complexes are made up of cubicles, which because of their unenclosed nature can increase the noise level, compared to that experienced within an office complex that features rooms with floor-to-ceiling walls containing sound-reducing material. However, even in offices separated by these walls, the voice of a neighboring employee speaking enthusiastically into his speakerphone can still carry down a hallway and be highly distracting to those at least in the immediate area.
When multiple people use their speakerphones simultaneously, the overall noise level in the local area can increase even more. This often leads to the annoying effect of one or more people turning up the volumes of their speakerphones in an attempt to combat the distracting noise level. When one person turns up the speakerphone volume, there is a limited effect on the noise level. But when multiple people all turn up their speakerphones, invariably there is the effect of raising the overall noise level even more, over a wider area and sometimes beyond the point of mere distraction.